A gateway to discovering and tracking the descendants of the original New Netherland Brouwer progenitors, namely Adam Brouwer of Gowanus, Jan (or Johannes) Brouwer of Flatlands and Willem Brouwer of Beverwijck (Albany). As well as some diversions covering other Brewer and Brower families with origins in Colonial America

Sunset at Gowanus Bay

Sunset at Gowanus Bay, Henry Gritten, 1851

Thursday, February 25, 2016

YFull,
a Y-Chromosome Sequence Interpretation Service updated their
Experimental Y-DNA Tree on February 23, 2016. The current version is
labeled v.4.02. With this update our three Adam Brouwer descendants have
been re-defined as haplogroup E-Y19643. The three descendants of Adam Brouwer are identified by id numbers YF05152, YF04988 and YF03732.

YTree v.4.01
had placed the above three in haplogroup E-Y19508 along with a fourth
individual (id:YF04809) whose origins are unknown to us (see the post of February 15, 2016). The new placement in v.4.02 separates our three Adam Brouwer descendants from that individual.

E-Y19643
is a more recent branch of the Y-DNA tree, and our three descendants of
Adam Brouwer are the sole members of this haplogroup. The new
branch is seen on YFull's YTree here.
This branch is identified by 15 SNPs which can be seen by hovering your
cursor over the gray box labeled +15 SNPs. YFull currently places the
time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) for our three descendants at
375 years before present (ybp). Adam Brouwer died in early 1692, which
is 324 years ago, and was probably born about 1620, about 396 years ago.
YFull currently calculates that E-Y19643 was formed 4100 years ago
during the Neolithic Period. Please note that the calculated dates are
estimates based upon available data. As more individuals are tested and
analyzed by YFull the estimates could change. If enough descendants of Adam Brouwer are tested*, we may be able to see sub-groups of E-Y19643 on the YTree.

Monday, February 15, 2016

The results of Big-Y tests with FamilyTreeDNA followed by analysis from YFull of two additional descendants of Adam Brouwer has enabled YFull to refine the placement of Adam Brouwer's descendants on their Experimental YTree.

The two new results are id numbers YF04988 and YF05152, and they join our previous kit (id: YF03732) on the YTree at the branch defined by SNP E-Y19508. This branch is "downstream" from the previous defining SNP E-V13. This branch of the larger Y-DNA tree can be viewed at the YFull website here. E-Y19508 is a subclade of E-V13 (which is presently defined by a number of SNPs including E-L142).*

Our three Adam Brouwer descendant test kits are joined by a fourth kit (id:YF04809) who has not been identified. We currently do not know the origins of this kit's earliest known paternal line ancestor.

The current YFull Experimental Tree (v. 4.01) tells us that the subclade E-Y19508 was formed approximately 4400 years ago, with a range of 4900 to 4000 years ago. This time would correspond to the later stages of the Neolithic (New Stone Age) Period in the Middle East, Anatolia and in the Balkans. The ancient paternal line ancestor of Adam Brouwer most likely lived in the area of the Balkans. See Adam Brouwer's Haplogroup by Richard Brewer. And here is a general map of the Late Neolithic period in Europe found at Wikimedia Commons. The region of the Balkans is focused on below.

Balkans in the Late Neolithic (TKostolany)

Of our three descendants of Adam Brouwer whose tests define this branch, one is a descendant of Adam Brouwer's son Abraham Brouwer, one is a descendant of Peter Brewer of Westmoreland Co., Pennsylvania and Hardin Co., Kentucky, and one is a descendant of John G. Brewer, born at Trenton, New Jersey, lived at Miami, Greene Co., Ohio. The later two have not yet been able to complete their lineages back to Adam Brouwer but are certain descendants of Adam Brouwer by virtue of the results of earlier Y-DNA STR testing. We currently have about thirty descendants of Adam Brouwer who have taken Y-DNA STR tests including a number of confirmed descendants of Adam Brouwer's sons Pieter, Nicholas and Jacob. We hope that more descendants of Adam Brouwer will take FTDNA's Big-Y test and will utilize analysis by YFull. If enough descendants choose to participate we should be able to refine the branch of the YTree on which Adam Brouwer's descendants are found, and we may be able to further subdivide that branch along the lines of Adam Brouwer's sons.

*YFull Experimental YTree v. 4.01, at 10 January 2016. The YTree is updated periodically and the above mentioned haplogroups may change with future revisions. Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) currently assigns two of out three participants to haplogroup E-L142, and the the third to E-L542. These two haplogroups, E-L142 and E-L542 are equivalent with E-V13. FTDNA does not incorporate YFull's analysis into its assignment of any particular participant.